This application claims priority to Korean Patent Application No. 2005-64380, filed on Jul. 15, 2005 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to generating power voltages, and more particularly to stably switching between different power voltages for active and stand-by modes of operation in a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A semiconductor device such as a semiconductor memory device operates in one of an active mode and a standby mode. Most of the inner circuits of the semiconductor memory device do not operate in the standby mode; however, all of the inner circuits typically operate in the active mode.
The semiconductor memory device operates with a lower standby power voltage in the standby mode, and operates with a higher active power voltage in the active mode because power consumption is desired to be minimized especially in the standby mode. In addition, the transition from the lower standby power voltage to the higher active power voltage is desired to be fast enough for proper operation of the semiconductor memory device.